Head of Service - Hope & Healing

Salary: £41,200.00 (London weighting if applicable)
Location: South Wales or England base - regular presence in Wales will be essential, travel to England and Scotland will be required.
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours: Full Time
Expiry Date: 30/03/2025 23:59

The Vacancy

The Hope and Healing Project is a community-led social action and system change project building on decades of work and extensive learning from communities, organisations, and practitioners about what it means to make long-term, sustainable differences to people’s lives.

 

We know that being seen and heard is a mental health intervention. We will work with communities to hear their stories, to make sense of their experiences and have their voices heard by people with power about what needs to change. We will create learning networks for professionals and activists to build trust and mutual support – reducing feelings of isolation, shame and hopelessness that working to create change can bring. We will listen deeply to stories across all layers of the system, sharing the learning via national campaigns to start a conversation about how we create and sustain hope that things can be different, and enable communities to heal from trauma and thrive.

 

We are seeking funding for a five-year project to deepen and scale existing work, bring together a network of organisations and build meaningful collaboration with communities to create long-lasting, transformational change in how people understand and respond to distress both at a human and policy intervention level.

 

Working with our partners, the project includes three elements:

 

  1. Communities of Hope: self-sustaining community groups across three areas, using an evidence-based trauma-informed community development approach. We will develop peer-to-peer support networks, exploring how to provide interventions that are trauma-informed, community-led and culturally sensitive – using storytelling for systems change through a place-based approach to improving community wellbeing.
  2. Hope Academy: learning networks, tools and support for people and professionals seeking to make change via place-based communities of practice, national events and resources about how to create change through a relational and trauma-informed approach – drawing on learning from the community groups and professionals, co-created for authenticity of voice.
  3. Campaign for Hope: national hope and healing conversations – a series of listening exercises and campaigns for change using our Truth Project approach, to hear direct experiences of working / living in traumatised systems and communities so we can advocate with people, policy-makers and leaders across the UK for change.

 

Central to this work is a recognition of the impact of trauma, interpersonal relationships and the social contexts surrounding people on their mental health. This includes the role organisations and wider systems have in creating the conditions for everyone to thrive. Being trauma-informed in Platfform is about creating psychosocially healthy environments for staff, people we support and the wider systems we are part of.

We work with people experiencing challenges with their mental health, and with communities who want to create a greater sense of wellbeing in the places that they live. Through our projects, we work with thousands of people each year.

We believe that long-lasting wellbeing comes about by understanding how lives can be shaped by traumatic experiences, identifying people’s strengths and focussing on healing. We know we can’t ‘fix’ people, but we can walk alongside people and help where we can on their journey.

We try hard to make Platfform a great place to work, we live our values and mission in everything that we do.

Our Benefits

Generous annual leave starting at 26 days

Health and wellbeing support including EAP

Flexible / Agile working

Enhanced family leave – includes carers leave, maternity, paternity and adoption

Training and Development opportunities across Platfform

6.5 % employer contribution to the pension scheme with a minimum employee contribution

Testimonials

Chrissie
Business Development Coordinator

"My favourite thing about working at Platfform is the organisation culture and how staff are treated. I’ve worked with many organisations and it is the first time I work in an environment where everyone cares for each other and their own unique needs. I feel supported and I am allowed to be creative in my work."

Luke
Young People Service Manager

My favourite thing about working for Platfform is being part of a family who cares so passionately to change the world as I do. Everyone is so supportive and welcoming which makes me proud to bring my true authentic self to work every day. Life is too short to do a job in which you don’t make a difference and at Platfform you make a difference every single day!"

Conor John
Case Worker

"I enjoy working for Platfform as it has provided me with lot of skills and helped me build a strong career path. With Platfform I am always learning and building my confidence to grow as a person. In my time at Platfform I have met great staff that have always provided great support and training, I also have great work opportunities and feel I can always build and grow."

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